The Weekend Starts on Wednesday

Thursday, January 22, 2015

The Summit of Fandom

The
loyalty of NASCAR fans to their favorite drivers and sport, and the measures
they’ll take to prove it, is legendary.

There’s
the iconic gentleman whose photo of the number “3” manscaped into his prodigious
hairy back lives in internet infamy. There’s the ambitious farmer in Ohio who, like
Michaelangelo on a Yardman tractor, marvelously groomed green acres into an
expansive tribute to Michael Waltrip’s No. 55 car (http://www.jayski.com/schemes/misc/NAPA-Nascar-Corn-Maze.jpg)

You could do a coffee-table book just showing the tattoos. All
noteworthy examples of fan devotion; but extreme outliers boldly venturing
where none have gone before have a new mountain to scale. A mild-mannered gent
by the name of Patrick Hickey upped the ante to higher levels. His was a feat
of extreme danger and borderline lunacy. Hickey, who has a deathly,
debilitating fear of heights, took a NASCAR flag to the top of the world – the
summit of Mt. Everest.

Adding
to this incredible accomplishment, the mountain climber, registered nurse, nursing
professor at University
of South Carolina, managed
to time it for May 24, matching the number of his favorite driver, Jeff Gordon.
When Hickey stood on the roof of the planet, he had completed a dangerous eight-year
quest to scale the “Seven Summits of the World” – the
highest mountain on each of the seven continents. He joined an elite group of one
of less than 150 people in history who have attained this “Holy Grail” in
mountaineering. “The Seven Summits was the fulfillment of a quest so wild and
fanciful, few have ever dreamed it, and fewer have experienced it,” Hickey
said.

As he charted the course for conquering the final – and
most dangerous – summit Hickey wasn’t planning on taking a piece of NASCAR with
him. As with so many things that go down in this sport, the fans had a say. In
a blog tapped out during 64 days on Everest, Hickey wrote he could deal with
the cold, isolation and constant danger. But there was one very distressing,
depressing thing about the trip. He was cut off from NASCAR.What was happening with Jeff Gordon, Hickey wondered?
Soon, online updates from strangers in 20 different countries began pouring in.

“All
kinds of hits came in from so many NASCAR fans. They were giving race results, points
updates, and news like Dale Jr. leaving DEI,” Hickey said. “Co-workers were amazed
to learn I was a NASCAR fan, when I had no idea they were fans, too. Of course,
the best part was being up on the mountain and hearing Jeff was doing so well
on the track.”

Hickey
noticed something else: NASCAR fans were giving generously to The Summit
Scholarship he had created to promote nursing amid the growing shortage and to support
the education of nursing students at USC.The goal was to raise $29,035 – or a buck for every foot of altitude of Mt.Everest.(Donations can still be made at www.sc-edu/nursing/summitscholarship.)

One
blog reader, Elizabeth Henry, is also tight with Kristin Nave of NASCAR Corporate
Events.Henry was following Hickey’s
fascination with Jeff Gordon, and she contacted Nave to see if NASCAR could
send something to Pat.Presto, a NASCAR NEXTEL
Cup Series flag was heading from Daytona Beach
to base camp at Mt.Everest. Eight days later – and two before his climb – the
flag arrived on a U.S. MedVac helicopter, which swooped in to take away two
sick climbers.

Up
on the summit, completing the most challenging physical task on the planet, Hickey
quickly removed his insulated mittens, grabbed the NASCAR flag and posed for a
photo.He had to be fast – after 30
seconds, frostbite will set it at temperatures reaching 40 degrees below zero and
winds gusting to 125 mph. Hickey had serious business to attend to as well.Stowed in his backpack were the ashes of his
dear friend, Sean Egan, who had perished on Everest in 2005.Since 1921, the mountain has been climbed by
more than 2,200 people.More than 190
have lost their lives – frightening odds for not making it down.Hickey would worry about that soon. For now, he opened the urn and released Egan’s
ashes high into the raging winds and across the wide expanse of mountains.

While
Hickey downplays the danger associated with the climb, it is wickedly perilous.The mountain’s top 3,000 feet is considered
“the Death Zone.” The digestive system of
climbers starts to shut down just when their bodies need nourishment the most.There is increased risk of high-altitude
cerebral edema, an often fatal swelling of the brain, as well as pulmonary
edema, where fluids gathering in the lungs can drown a person.

Basically,
the human body is not built to survive such heights. We rapidly deteriorate.

Moving
upwards in the Death Zone, on his way to the summit, Hickey had been caught in
a violent windstorm.His legs went numb,
and he couldn’t move them.He luckily
spotted his climbing team’s tent and used his arms to pull through the ice to
safety.He could only speak in
unintelligible grunts and was unable to offer his comrades any clue about his
condition.Fellow climbers diagnosed advanced
hypothermia. Hickey was revived in a tent only three hours before the final
climb to the summit. Once there, he lost sight in one eye and had extremely
limited vision in the other.

If
you meet Hickey at a race, he looks like any other fan. But don’t let his
slight frame and easy smile fool you. He’s a tough, stubborn, experienced
mountain climber.Even so, the elements on
Everest are brutal, and at the top of the mountain, Hickey was completely
beaten up. He knew making it to the top doesn’t mean a thing if you don’t make
it down. He’d heard about the difficulties of the three-day descent – where 80
percent of climbers lose their lives – but would now personally experience the
hazards when it was his own depleted body wanting to shut down. More than once
he sincerely believed he’d be another well-dressed carcass eternally frozen on
the face of Everest.

“Your
emotions are riding on the exhilaration of summiting Mt. Everest,
which turns to sheer terror when you remember you have to get down,” Hickey
recalled.

Unable
to see much, he was confronted with a series of frightening moments that stretched
to agonizing days. Deprived of oxygen and woozy, and battling his paralyzing,
stomach-turning fear of heights, he had to cross deep crevasses by crawling over
aluminum ladders in strong winds. On the verge of complete exhaustion, he fell
down.Instead of tumbling toward Tibet
10,000 feet below or taking a steeper drop into Nepal, 12,000 feet downward, he
crashed to stop on a very forgiving part of the trail and was snagged by safety
lines preventing a sure death plunge.

“Everest
is the ultimate high and the ultimate risk,” Hickey said. You’re not eating or
sleeping. You’re not hydrating. Your legs are going rubber. My needle was past the
E, and I still had to make it down a vertical ice wall. The steepness of the
canyon walls and the radiation of the intense sun reflected off the snow and
underlying glacier combine to sap your fluids until your tongue seems glued to
the roof of your mouth. I knew I needed lots of water, but every time I
swallowed it felt like sharp pieces of glass were tumbling down my throat, so
raw from the wind.”

Worse
than the severe dehydration was not being able to see. Hickey visualized his
wife, Carol, holding in his head her image and the thought of seeing her again.Virtually blind, freezing to death, and
malnourished, he dug deep to find reserves of courage and determination he
didn’t know existed.He kept moving
forward, taking one small step, crawling, getting up, then another step, then
another.

Home
is where Hickey became a NASCAR fan, but not until he was in his 20’s.He grew up the eldest of nine on a 100-acre
farm in rural Canada.As a boy, he was plagued by his bad asthma
and that fear of heights.Once he missed
dinner because he was stranded in the barn, holding onto a plank in the rafters
for dear life.He felt awkward in
school, wearing second-hand clothes and mismatched gloves from a bus depot’s
lost-and-found due to the family’s meager finances.He did poorly in class, his mind wandering to
dreams of exotic places far away.A
guidance counselor directed him to study nursing.He was initially confused and put off; wasn’t
that a women’s profession?But he was a
tender, caring soul and realized the possibility of traveling the world, saving
lives. A lifelong passion for helping others and visiting strange lands
began.While studying for his advance nursing
degree at the University
of South Carolina, Pat
kept the TV on “for background noise.” One Sunday the race was on, and he grew
interested.

“I
got caught up in the soap opera of the sport” he explained. He was entertained
by the changing alliances on the track and the simmering grudges in the garage.
He was immediately drawn to Jeff Gordon. He saw an admirable leader who remained
positive no matter the present circumstances, qualities which would preserve his
own life climbing on several continents.He liked that Jeff was a staunch competitor, always quick to praise
unsung team members, which would be his philosophy on hospital trauma teams and
developing new nurses.He was impressed
that Gordon was an ambassador for goodwill in channeling millions of dollars
for the needy through the Jeff Gordon Foundation.After all, Hickey’s own desire to help others
inspired him to become a nurse and then to train and mentor future nurses as a university
professor, nursing advocate, spokesperson and creator of the Summit
Scholarship.

Hickey’s
first Sprint Cup Series race was at Darlington Raceway in 2006.He sat three rows from the track, riveted by
the thundering procession, aiming his mobile phone at the passing rush of cars.A year later, as he was climbing to the “roof
of the world” and tackling the seventh and final summit, Jeff Gordon was racing
at that same Darlington track.Before heading to Nepal,
Hickey had told his good friend Judy Barr, a Tony Stewart fanatic working at
the University of South Carolina, “If Jeff Gordon wins at Darlington, I want Jeff to know somebody will be smiling
on top of the world.”

“The
whole time I was at Darlington, I kept thinking
about Pat’s words,” Barr said. “When I climbed to the very last row in
the stands for the race, I thought of Pat climbing. I was right in front
of Jeff's pit box. Throughout the race, Jeff had water issues.
There was just no way he was going to win the race, let alone finish.Steam was pouring from the engine. When
Jeff ended up winning, even he said he had no idea how the engine held
up.Drivers
talk all the time about the ‘Racing Gods.’The way Pat’s climb and Jeff’s win worked out, I like to think the
Racing Gods were looking down on both of them that weekend.”

Word about Gordon’s win got to Hickey on the mountain, and
he was naturally elated.

After
hearing Hickey’s Everest tale and Seven Summits accomplishment, NASCAR helped
arrange for him to attend the Sprint Cup Series race in Charlotte in October 2007.At the prerace ceremony on pit road, he presented
the NASCAR flag he took to the top to NASCAR President Mike Helton.It will reside in NASCAR’s Hall of Fame in Charlotte when the facility
opens in 2010.

Pat
finally got to meet Gordon prior to the race.The two world-class athletes who tempt fate in an often hostile and
unpredictable environment stood in the narrow hallway of the No. 24 DuPont
Chevrolet hauler.Hickey peppered Gordon
with questions about maneuvering a stock car around at track at 180 mph inches
from good friends and respected rivals.Gordon wanted none of that.He
was hitting Hickey with questions on making it up – and then down – the treacherous
ice and howling-winds of a mountain so breathtakingly majestic and satanically cruel
at the same time.Hickey pulled from his
backpack a rock retrieved from the top of the world and handed the unique
keepsake to his NASCAR hero.The race
car driver said to the mountain climber, “Some people question what I do.But I think you’re the crazy one here.”

Hickey
keeps another rock from the top of Mt.Everest in his office
desk at the University.“I want to
remind myself of the great potential we have within us to do anything we put
our minds to, and also the great responsibility I have to find that potential
in my students,” he said. “Each of us has a sense of adventure within us.Mine are just more noticeable because they’re
more extreme.For some, the adventure
can be to climb a mountain, run a marathon, learn a new language, travel to a
foreign country, or seek a more challenging job or position within an
organization.We all have the potential
to do better in our lives. I hope my
Seven Summits helps show that.”

The
next time you’re confronted with a daunting, seemingly impossible task, maybe
you’ll remember fellow NASCAR fan Patrick Hickey.Asthmatic and afraid of heights, Pat went to the
highest, thinnest air on earth.He ventured
far outside of his comfort zone, testing his limits way beyond reason, and
discovering what he’s truly capable of: Anything.

It
was Pat’s idea to bring the banner of his favorite sport to the top of Mt.Everest.But if NASCAR had its choice for a flag
bearer, there would be no better selection than Dr. Patrick Hickey, a giving
man whose deep, dark fears could have robbed his full potential.Pat did what few attempt.He got down on his hands and knees, and he crawled
right over those demons.

For more
stories like this, The Weekend Starts on
Wednesday: True Stories of Remarkable NASCAR Fans is available online.

Friday, October 17, 2014

Throughout
history, a host of useful and important inventions have come from unplanned
accidents.

In China 2,000 years ago, a cook mixed charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter. The concoction exploded in vivid colors. Fireworks were invented, and life immediately
got better for teenage boys.

In 1879, a researcher spilled
a chemical on his hand. He went off to
lunch, forgetting to wash his hands. The
bread he munched on tasted unusually sweet.
The world would get its first artificial sweetener, saccharin.

Penicillin was discovered by
chance in 1928 when a British scientist was experimenting with bacteria in
petri dishes.

And
so it was for Chris MacNicol, who for five dollars purchased Joe Nemechek’s
right front qualifying Goodyear tire at the 2004 Daytona 500. The tire was heavy. MacNicol
put it down. Looking at that wheel, he
had an epiphany. Wearing only shorts, he
sat in it. When he got up, the tire
stuck. Hilarity ensued. Fans gathered around. Photos were taken, autographs signed. Tire Man was born.

Most
celebrities need a build up to develop their base. It’s usually gradual. The biggest stars of
modern times, The Beatles, played for years in relative obscurity before the
madness began. Tire Man, however, happened
instantly. Fans saw the buff dude in the
Goodyear Eagle and frayed straw hat and instinctively called out, “Tire
Man!” He was an immediate Pied Piper for
the enthusiastic NASCAR masses, who formed a bellowing impromptu circle in the infield. A Florida
state trooper was called in to investigate the ruckus. She approached the well-built young man
mugging for the cameras in a role he’d been waiting his whole life to
fill.

“Please tell
me you have something on under that tire,” the officer said.

“Why don’t you
look?” Tire Man suggested.

The cop was
flustered and embarrassed. Here was this
good-looking muscular guy, could have been a Chippendale’s dancer, his
formidable, well-rounded pecs dancing a happy jiggle when he laughed. They didn’t cover this in the training
academy.

Tire
Man respects the law. His dad is a
retired cop. He wasn’t about to let the
trooper lose face, particularly in front of dozens of preening fans awaiting
the outcome of this peculiar showdown.
He reached into the Goodyear. A
hush settled over the crowd. He yanked
up his shorts. Major cheers.

The state
trooper tipped her cap and moved on, utterly relieved with the quick and
suitable ending, escaping the awkwardness of hauling in a guy, for what? Wearing nothing but a Goodyear? Was she supposed to impound the tire and take
it back to the NASCRR&DCenter
for inspection?

On the day
Tire Man was born, so many fans wanted their photos taken, it took Tire Man and
his dad six hours to walk from turn four to their campsite in turn one. Chris sensed what Superman felt wearing that
cape. He innately knew he’d be inside this tire at other tracks…especially his
beloved Talladega Superspeedway.

“He put on
that tire, and the whole thing was absolutely immediately hilarious,” said his
dad, Bruce MacNicol. “It was the best scene at any sporting event I’ve ever
seen. All the women wanted to know what
he had on underneath. Chris said, ‘an
inner liner.’ A few of the ladies got a little risqué, but it was all
in good fun.”

Tire Man’s
supportive wife wasn’t there, and maybe that was a good thing. “As lucky as I may be to be married to the
guy, I have not yet ventured to the track to see him wearing the tire ‘live,’
though he has put it on at home and modeled it for me,” Tonya said. “The funniest part is seeing pictures of
Chris, and in the background there’s a large crowd taking even more
pictures…and then there’s the line of people waiting to meet him. Just amazing!”

Tonya and
Chris met in college, where he was pursuing his degree as an exercise
physiologist. Chris had back problems, and
took to swimming. Tonya was a life
guard, and they’d swim together when Chris wasn’t doing cannon balls off the
diving board. It took more than four
years, but he made her laugh till her sides hurt, and finally got his
girl.

Even though Chris
is hoofing around the track mostly au
natural, posing for pictures with scores of strange women of unknown repute,
Tonya completely supports her husband’s alter ego. “Chris is not shy about anything. He loves
the sport of NASCAR and anything that puts him in the center of it. I
love the whole idea of Tire Man, because I know Chris loves it. He is
such a people person, and whatever he can do to make people smile makes him the
happiest. I look at his website and Facebook page in awe of the friends he’s
made and the loyalty they show. The man they see is the same one I’m
at home with every day, who makes me smile and makes me crazy all at the same
time. I have nothing but pride when I hear someone say, ‘That’s your husband? I just saw
him at the track.”

“I just love making people laugh,” Tire Man
says. “I was the class clown, the guy
always doing the stupid stuff no one else does.
I’m kinda like Mikey, the kid in the TV commercial, who will eat
anything.”

If you take an
informal poll of NASCAR fans, many have seen Tire Man, in person or through internet
photos or in features in NASCAR-friendly outlets like The Sporting News or SPEED. When ABC News’ Prime Time Live ran an in-depth series on NASCAR, they found TireMan. Even Will Ferrell, appearing on talks shows
to promote his film, Talladega Nights: The
Ballad of Ricky Bobby, remembered venturing out into the infield late at
night and marveling at this gregarious guy in a straw hat with a tire around
his waist.

During the week,
when Tire Man goes back to his civilian “Clark Kent” persona, he is a sales rep
for a medical supply company, specializing in breathing devices. At the company’s annual sales meeting, a
photo of Tire Man went up on the big screen to motivate hundreds of managers
from all over the country.

“It’s an amazing and diverse bunch that
congregates around Tire Man,” says Tire Man, who like Bo Jackson and Charles
Barkley, frequently slips into referring to himself in the third person. “I have met everyone from CEO’s to the
gainfully unemployed. But for five days twice a year, we hail from the same
place and hoot and holler side by side. After doing this a few years, I’ve built a
lot of friendships and going to races is really like a reunion.”

Tire Man is built
like a bull that goes to the gym. Still,
the first time wearing the wheel, he was supporting its full 45 pounds against
his skin. “I suffered a severe tire rub
in my right quarter panel,” he says. He
still has a scar on his hip where the tire sat that day.

He went home,
got out a saw horse and circular saw and went to town on the tire. There was all kind of noise, and smoke and
rubber all over the place but also a method to the madness. Tire Man sliced away some rubber to insert
pipe insulation. He drilled holes for
U-bolts attaching to two-inch heavy-duty Dickies suspenders. The tire now hangs from the suspenders,
steadied against his hips.

The trickiest
part is going to the bathroom. Tire Man
has to lean back and use a side wall for required stabilization and
leverage. “At every race, someone will
inevitably walk in the bathroom, and you’ll hear, ‘Holy S--t!'”

Even before
the creation of Tire Man, Chris showed his devotion to NASCAR in curious ways. About a year after he married Tonya, Dale
Earnhardt won a race. Chris celebrated
by diving into the biggest mud hole that he could find.

“You guessed
it - off comes the wedding band,” Tonya explained. “Apparently Chris searched for nearly four
hours for that ring before having to come home and confess what had
happened. Bystanders took pictures, and he came home with a stack of
photos showing him digging through the mud pit looking for his wedding
ring. I just had to laugh. I guess everyone must have anticipated I
was going to make his life miserable. They took pity on him and posted messages
to me on his website vouching for how long he had searched and how sad he
was. Needless to say, the ring he wears today is from Wal-Mart.”

Tire Man wasn’t always so
passionate about NASCAR. Although his dad was a
drag racer in Detroit and a friend of NASCAR
driver Benny Parsons (the two men belonged to the same Masonic lodge in the MotorCity),
he grew up indifferent to racing. In
fact, he’d never been to a NASCAR race until college, making his first trip to
the track under mild duress while at JacksonvilleStateUniversity.

“My teammates
on the baseball team wanted to hit the race at Talladega.
To be honest, my first reaction was, ‘I’m not watching that crap.’ I
just had no idea, and like a lot of people resorted to the stereotype that it’s
not a sport, and would be boring. I had
no interest at all.”

The fellas
talked about how cool the race would be.
Their resistant teammate was not swayed.
Instead of Rusty and Dale at Talladega,
it might was well have been Anthony and Cleopatra at the Metropolitan
Opera. There was nothing intriguing
about hanging around a race track. It
sounded like a colossal waste of time.
Then his buddies promised a big party.
Bingo; that was the magic term the gregarious, outgoing class clown
needed to hear. Now they were speaking
his language. Six strapping ballplayers
loaded into a pickup truck, heading for the Alabama border.

“From
the moment we rolled into Talladega,
I was hooked,” he said. “I went just to
hang with the guys. Seeing those cars
going ‘round and ‘round, I started to ask questions, learning about the drivers
and their history. It really grabbed
hold of me. And to be 19, in the middle
of that huge party. Oh, man, I was in
heaven.”

Since 1993,
Tire Man hasn’t missed a single Talladega
race weekend. There have
been big parties and sad, poignant times as well. “In the infield, if you go to the second to last
light pole on Talladega Blvd.
headed towards turn 1 and 2, you will find a memorial plaque for Steve Citrano
embedded in his camping site,” Tire Man explained. “Stevie Wonder, we called him, because he was
mechanical genius. Stevie was always fixin’ someone’s motor home and most of
the fixin’ was on his own which kept breaking down on the way to the track About five years ago, we lost Steve to a
diabetic induced coma. We found him on
Sunday morning before the race. That race was rained out and finished on Monday.
We stayed and watched the race in his
honor, then somberly packed his things and left the track. At every race, we display checkered flags at
his plaque, because Stevie Wonder has finished his own race.”

Tire Man started
taking his dad, Bruce, to races in 1995.
At first they rolled out sleeping bags and slept under the stars in the
bed of Bruce’s Ford Ranger pickup truck. He now travels in style to races at
Daytona, Atlanta, Bristol
and Talladega in
a 35-foot Fleetwood RV with comfortable beds and satellite TV.

Tire Man and
his dad have spent some of their closest times at the track. Chris is considering tires for his two
boys, six and four. “Maybe a bicycle
tire!” he says. Eternally level-headed
Tonya is putting a kibosh on that for now.

“One day, I do want them to see the reaction their dad gets at the race
track,” she says. “I think Tire Man
encompasses everything about Chris. It’s really his character, his
charisma, his charm that draws people in. Anyone can throw on a tire –
but that doesn’t mean everyone is going to like the man wearing it. When
people meet Tire Man they are definitely meeting Chris – the guy that loves to
smile, loves to laugh, loves NASCAR, and loves his family.”

For more stories like Tire Man’s,
The Weekend Starts on Wednesday: True
Stories of Remarkable NASCAR Fans is available online at places like amazon.com.

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Had
our God in heaven ever blessed us with a more beautiful day than 13 years ago
today?

Then the planes hit.

At 8:46 am, three blocks from impact, my wife was
dropping Gaby at first grade. "People in the top floors are
throwing furniture out the windows," Viviane would later recount. She wasn't
wearing her glasses. Those weren't chairs. Bodies were free falling.

It was a painful, absolutely horrific time. So many
families lost so much.

The one silver lining (a term I hate) was how New
Yorkers -- and our city -- instantly changed.

This anonymous, crowded, sharp-elbowed bustling place
suddenly became gentle. We genuinely cared for one another, witnessing and participating in innumerable acts of kindness. We couldn't articulate it,
we certainly didn't choose it, but each of us had fundamentally acknowledged
our mutual humanity. On the subways, you
knew. The city's entire vibe had gone Midwestern.

No matter where you lived, we were all New Yorkers on the same team. Common creatures, proud and angry, reeling in devastation and
terrible hurt and above all, deep down, terrified to the bone.

In those dire straits, your world irrevocably changed, you don't cope by yourself. We needed one another. And we
acted the part. We were nicer, more polite. We slowed a step or two. We
became Dr. Seuss characters. Skin color didn't matter. Who cared how much
someone earned. Cops were on a pedestal. The Mayor was
our Savior, rock and unquestioned leader

Mean streets became avenues of utopia. The pile
still burned (it smelled like burning computers thrown on a human barbecue) but
our patented brusque coarseness was refined and buffed to a Mayberry-like
folksy softness.

The months wore on. The bagpipes faded. A war
commenced to satisfy our desire to lash out just as we were attacked. And
nearly imperceptibly, the respectful, loving metropolis that New York had
implausibly become slowly began to fade away.

And here we are today -- an us-against-them
City. But "them" isn't a raging fanatic in a cave. It's the young
cop, the kid whose pants are falling down his backside. Our great differences
are politicized. Rancor rules. There's no time to be polite. Are you
kidding me? I'm walkin' here! The Opportunity of 9.11 has been squandered.
A Silver Lining has turned jet black.

Finally, 13 years after the planes, the ground zero
Museum is up and running. You can get your 9.11
T-shirt. But our improbable brotherhood ain't for sale. It's been
permanently lost.

Friday, June 13, 2014

Beautiful sight on The Williamsburg Bridge this
evening: A young man proposing to his
girlfriend. She accepted.

Now, I am
generally the first person to violate the privacy of any individual in this
city doing something out of the ordinary by whipping out the iPhone and posting
the video on social media. Hey, public acts are fair game.

But this was too sublime, too deeply
personal, too untouchably special. It
was their moment and theirs only.

Capturing this would have gotten massive likes and shares, but I could
not encroach. And, of course, as the couple will tell the story, many, many
times in the coming years and decades, of a profoundly intimate moment of
commitment over the murky East River on the romantic old foggy bridge, as much
as I seek immortality on a daily basis, I did not want to be the part of the
oft-repeated tale that goes, "...and then we see this creepy man in a
tan pinstripe suit and red pumas taking out his camera phone and starting to
film us."

Friday, November 29, 2013

Thanksgiving
evening, and the city streets are virtually empty.Perfect night to walk the dogs. Just my boys
and a few scurrying rats...and now an older black woman in a heavy coat who
catches my eye.

"Everything's
spinning," she announces.

I try to
smile, but her words are surprisingly unsettling. The dogs pull up in front of
her, enjoying the peculiar odors baked onto Manhattan concrete like a haughty
sommelier lovingly sniffs a goblet of Chateau Petrus. The woman's eyes widen.

This time, nearly pleading. "Everything's spinning."

Is this
satirical social commentary? An
observation on our country, our society, spinning out of control? Stop the
world, I want to get off?

The damn dogs are stuck in place, sucking in the
remnant aroma of some old poop or discarded fried chicken or something.

Again,
"Everything's spinning."

I'm close
enough to see big clear eyes and know she's not drunk. While our world is
literally turning in space like a blue-green Dreidel (happy Chanukah, people),
her own world isn't spinning. Are her haunting words a kind of existential
cosmic observation -- the basic existence, unique personal unfathomable inner realities, and greater
universe we inhabit all concurrently twisting madly out of control?

A chill passes through my body. I tug the leashes and briskly walk away.

It is when
I'm home, in the comfort of our cozy apartment that everything immediately
becomes clear.

Of
course! "Happy Thanksgiving." That's what she was saying.

Say it out
loud: "Everything's Spinning…Happy Thanksgiving."

The old woman is
gone now, if she was ever there at all. I feel horrible. She can only assume, no matter how hard she
tried, this rude man with the small expensive dogs lacked the decency to return
a simple holiday greeting.

Sharing this
anecdote is an attempt at redemption of sorts, sent to balance
the scales of karma.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Talladega
Superspeedway has a notorious reputation as the loudest, most raucous party
stop on the NASCAR circuit. It’s also
the place where Kevin Kent was sent to surrender to Christ.

And if
that’s not enough of a man-bites-dog story, before Kevin Kent went stone cold
sober on October 6, 2007, dedicating himself to Jesus in the middle of the
throbbing infield after 31years of
drinking and drugging, he was the good-time ringleader and captain of an
amazing psychedelic bus that had probably served up more suds than Busch
Stadium in St. Louis.

After his
spiritual awakening at Talladega,
Kevin became a brand new man. His
one-of-a-kind party bus still draws crowds at the races. It’s just taken on a different role, now
helping to tell a remarkable story of grace accepted and redemption
pursued. The bus remains an amusement
park-worthy attraction thousands of fans experience – covered inside and out in
drips and streaks and splatters of florescent paint, colorful gobs slung on the
walls and seats and floors, as if Jackson Pollock worked at Earl Scheib Paint
& Body. When darkness falls over the
race track, fans still wait their turn to climb aboard, putting on 3-D glasses
to view a twisting, oozing menagerie of electric blues, hot pinks, ruby reds,
canary yellows and lime greens, a demented mix of color in a shifting landscape
that throws anyone walking through the bus into a trippy, 60’s frame of
mind. Kevin continues to be a fixture by
the back emergency exit at the end of the tour, wearing a coat and hat speckled
in neon paint. But instead of handing
out beads and booze, he offers Bibles and church service DVDs.

“Before I
was saved, this bus was the scene for one non-stop, hard-core party,” he said.
“I used to put pasties on girls coming through.
Now I give them my testimony. You
could say we went from The Pastey Bus to God’s Bus.”

The 1960
Chevrolet had been shuttling Indiana
school kids before it was purchased by Kevin’s friend, Bob. “About six of us got an assortment of paint
and just let it rip,” Kevin says. They feverishly coated the bus top to bottom
in a freaky free-hand style acidhead Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters would have
approved. When the black lights were
installed and 3-D glasses brought in, the old Chevy became a favored party
destination, particularly at Michigan International Speedway in the late
1990’s. Word spread, and Bob’s
psychedelic bus became the place to
visit in the infield.

In 2002, an
aggressive cancer snuck up and took Bob’s life.
Kevin purchased the bus from his friend’s estate. “I wanted to keep Bob
and his dream alive, so I bought it and simply named it, ‘Bob’s Party Bus’.” Kevin and the bus would make regular
pilgrimages to NASCAR’s two summer races in Michigan.

The
legend of the psychedelic bus grew, as did Kevin’s appetite for beer. He could drink four or five cases a
weekend. He had started drinking when he
was 14 and never let up, even after getting kicked out of school for good at
16, and being convicted of DWI several times. Drinking led to drugging, and
over the years, getting blotto as often as possible cost Kevin his driver’s
license, two marriages and a few jobs.
But he had no intention of stopping.

In the
infield of Michigan,
Kevin roamed freely with a drink in his hand, except for one spot. He’d always come across a hot band playing
catchy music and having a good time. He
stayed away. “They were a Christian rock
band, and I knew Christians never had any fun. I didn’t need to know about God,
and I kept my distance,” he said.

At the
2007 August race in Michigan,
he noticed a guy named Mike unloading a trailer for the band. He offered to help. Mike was fine on his own; he only had one box.
“What? I’m not good enough to carry your box?” Kevin joked.

The men
hit it off, and Kevin invited Mike and a band mate to see the magic bus. Naturally, they were impressed and returned
with the rest of the band that evening.
Each band member autographed the inside of the bus.

On Saturday
night, a fellow in the band who went by the name of Preacher Man Berry told Kevin
that a big-time racing executive would be at the concert to hand out shirts, sign
autographs and thank the fans. Kevin
spotted the exec at the show and invited him to see the bus. The buzz had
spread further than anyone imagined and the exec was eager to check it out.

Kevin and
his friends cleared everyone out to give the executive special tour. They chatted and snapped a few pictures. On the way back to see the band, the
executive told Kevin he needed to take his amazing party bus to Talladega.

“I’ve
always wanted to go, and I have a friend down there, but I can’t do it,” Kevin
said.

“You
didn’t hear me. You really need to get
this bus to ‘Dega,” the executive repeated.

Kevin
gave the same answer. The executive
asked why.

“This bus
doesn’t do to well on gas. And we need
to eat. It costs a lot to get down there
and back, and I just don’t have the money,” Kevin said.

“What
about if I split it with you?”

An offer
like that was the last thing in the world Kevin expected to hear. Too shocked to even speak, he nodded
eagerly. The executive took out his
wallet and handed Kevin $500.

Kevin
was in awe of the gesture. He had found
a steady job as an Iron Worker in Ohio,
but he feared how much the trip would cost.
And the bus needed immediate repairs.
He sputtered, “I’m really not sure, my wife is gonna kill me…”

Before he
could finish, he was handed another $200.

“I really
want you to come to Talladega,
and hope this will make her happy,” the executive said.

Kevin
couldn’t thank him enough. But what the
executive said next surprised him even more.

“Thank
you for being such a good fan.” he said, extending his hand.

Kevin
looked him in the eye as they shook.

“I’ll be
there,” he said.

“I know
you will.”

The
motorsports executive didn’t know it at the time, but his extraordinary
impromptu gesture likely saved Kevin Kent’s life.

Even as
his drinking escalated, Kevin worked non-stop over the next month to prepare the
bus for the long haul to the deep South.
He got new tires and added a generator and air conditioner. He’d heard about the awesome bunched-up
restrictor plate racing at NASCAR’s longest track, but he was more hopped up
planning how he’d cut loose in the party capital of NASCAR. “I was so excited knowing that I’d be able to
go crazy. And once we got there, party I
did: Thursday, Thursday night, Friday and Friday night,” he said.

Everyone in
‘Dega who saw Bob’s Party Bus loved it. The story of the bus spread to the
other camps. Big crowds were flocking at
the entrance with fans calmly lining up for the incredible tour. One of the fans who’d mounted the bus, Mark,
was a member of the Christian band, The River. Saturday morning, within earshot, Mark told Kevin’s
wife, Debbie, he wished Kevin would stay sober.
“He’d be so much more fun, don’t
you think?” Mark said.

It wasn’t
an angry challenge or an aggressive intervention, more the tone of a caring person
disappointed with the way someone’s life has turned out. Now, Saturday night in Talladega
is like Fat Tuesday in New Orleans. That didn’t seem to bother Kevin. For the first time since he was 14 years old,
he decided not to drink. “I really
didn’t spend too much time thinking about it.
I just decided not to have that first drink, and the night unfolded.
Amazingly, it was the most fun in my life I had ever had. Without a single drink, I had a blast.”

As day turned
into night, Kevin was chatting with Wes, another member of the band. Kevin casually mentioned he was thinking
about getting a Bible.

“I’ll see
what I can do,” Wes said, before the men went to sleep.

On Sunday
morning, Kevin woke up with a headache. “I’d
been drinking so much my body just assumed it had to feel horrible in the
morning,” he said. He and Debbie had
such a good time with Mark and Wes of The River, they decided to head over to the
church service the band organized between the track’s first and second
turns. Wes spotted them and announced he
had a Bible for Kevin.
This wasn’t a spare Bible
gathering dust on a shelf. It was the Bible
Wes’s kids had used through five states,
the Bible he had taken around the world twice on his mission trips, the one Wes
had received after he accepted Christ into his life.

Kevin
couldn’t accept Wes’s personal Bible.
But Wes insisted.

“God has
answered my prayers. He’s led me to give
this to you. Take it,” he told Kevin.

With tears
of happiness in his eyes, Kevin accepted the Bible. At the church service, he raised his hands
and told God he was sorry for all he had done in his life. He prayed, “Jesus, please forgive me, I’m
giving my life to you.” He saw a bright
flash, more intense than lightning or a welder’s flash, brighter than anything he’d
ever seen. When the light was gone, he
could see more clearly, as if God had removed the plastic from his eyes. The
air even tasted better.

“At that
moment, God removed my desire for alcohol and drugs. He took away the anger
from my body, and I began to love my family even more, with all of my heart. He
helped me love from the inside out and not the outside in. The song Amazing
Grace is the story of my life – I once was lost, but now I see,”

Kent,
who is now 47, has been clean and sober since that weekend in Talladega.
He’s still not sure why one of the top officials in motorsports was so
strident about him taking Bob’s Party Bus to Talladega, putting his life on a
new path, other than it was God’s will.
“Can you think of any other reason?” he asks. Bob’s Party Bus is still mobbed at a half
dozen Sprint Cup races each year. It’s
easier to find than ever, now bearing a 30-foot cross illuminated with color
Christmas lights visible clear across the track. The bottom is rusting badly, and Kevin is
praying for additional divine intervention.

“You
could say we did a conversion on the bus, from R-rated to G-rated,” Kevin
noted. “It’s still Bob’s Party Bus but
with a different purpose – to share the love of God with other people. When people come to visit the bus, I have
their attention, and can witness that there’s much more to life than alcohol
and drugs. I share my testimony with
them so they know what God can do in their lives. I’ve replaced booze on the
bus with Bibles. Anyone who needs one is welcome.”

Reprinted with permission from THE WEEKEND STARTS ON WEDNESDAY: True Stories of Remarkable NASCAR Fans
(Motorbooks) which is available at many online bookstores.

Monday, October 21, 2013

The NASCAR season is a traveling circus from February
through November.For ten months, a dedicated
group of people pull off a Super Bowl on steroids just about every weekend. Even after the champagne flies to crown a new
champion in Miami
around Thanksgiving, there will be scant rest for the weary.Each series has awards banquets, and Daytona
is looming over everyone’s head like a safe dangling on piano wire.Following the longest season in professional sports,
the only real vacation for thousands in the NASCAR industry is around Christmas,
where all versions of Ricky Bobby’s baby Jesus are celebrated. Then we prepare
for a new season. For my family each
year, a late-December respite in Vermont is the much-needed so-called battery
charge.

One particular off-season ski trip was my
chance to move beyond “intermediate” skiing.
Out on the slopes, the sun was disappearing behind the formidable
mountain. I was successfully closing out
Day One, and would have four more to improve the old technique.

For the proverbial Last Run of the Day, Viviane
and I come across a black diamond called “Superstar.” Just seeing that name
gets my adrenaline pumping: strong and confident notions of red, white and blue
achievement, Superman, Wonder Woman, Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps in their USA
Speedos. Superstar! If my run were televised, Jim McKay would in a
canary yellow blazer describing it.

Viviane is smooth and light on her skis. She
describes my style as Jean-Claude Killy on the green bunny runs and Jerry Lewis
on the blacks. Today, Jerry is a no show. I haven’t gone down once. The legs feel
good. It’s time to master the elements, blast past the fat part of the
bell curve and enter the rarified realm of the expert skier. I am a super
star.

I point a pole to the beckoning trail sign.
Viviane nods, and a bad idea builds momentum with the trail’s steep decline and
wind-blown moguls. (Are the scary bumps called “moguls” because they mimic Donald
Trump’s hair?)

My wife is out in front, deftly finding her way down
the difficult slope. I pick up too much speed and try to cut back in a
groove between slick moguls, a move that would have looked good on the
chalkboard. Too bad we’re not in a
classroom, but skidding down an iceberg. My skis hit a rut and jerk to the side.
My top heavy body surges in the other direction as if launched from a circus
cannon. Except my arms aren’t stoic at my sides. This is a
flailing, out-of-control, agony-of-defeat cartwheel.
NASCAR drivers see crashes
happening in slow motion. Wayne Gretzky explained when he scored a goal, time slowed, and the puck appeared the
size of a pizza pie, the goal as wide as the Hoover Dam. None of that here. It’s an instantaneous, oh-snap blur, white
canvas screaming toward my face. Greg Louganis couldn’t have hit the
surface at a more precise 90-degree angle. It sounds like chomping a
mouthful of Cap’n Crunch. I bounce like a Super Ball. On the second
revolution, my head smacks the rock-hard mountain like a bowling ball dropped
from a roof. Finally, silence.

It is a
sad reflection of our You Tube culture that laying there, thankfully breathing (albeit
stunned) and reassured my skull was not split like a rotten pumpkin, I wonder
if anyone on the chair lift captured my spastic circus-act flop. Please
tell me no one camera-phoned this. I’m destined to be an internet laughing
stock. Without royalties.

There are no cameras or giggling. I’m
alone, in one piece. This can’t be that bad. The morning papers
said a Manhattan
window washer survived a 47-story fall.

All my digits are moving. But as the commercial says, I’ve fallen and I
can’t get up.

That initial crunch wasn’t the give of
snow. It something in my shoulder breaking.

My wife kept her wits and balance, and had pulled
to a stop below. The grade is too steep for her to come up. All is OK, no
worries, I reassure her with a lefty Super Star-like thumbs up. The
covenant of marriage allows making claims to your life partner that you do not
believe. She tells passing skiers
following her gaze up the mountain, “Oh, he’s fine. He’s just catching his breath.”

All I can do is flash a dumb smile and that thumbs-up
with the arm I can move.

“Baby, just put your skis on and ski on down!”
she urges.

Maybe an expert skier could do that. I’m an
eternal intermediate, forever checking that middle box on the rental line, a
reckless overachiever who flirted with bragging rights for super-stardom beyond
his proficiency and paid the price. The run couldn’t have been named
“Devil’s Emergency Room” to scare me away?
I try to stand, but the shoulder is shot. I slide on my bottom across the slippery
surface, faster and faster down the steep hill. This is not going to end
well. I dig boot heels into the ice, and
lurch to a stop.

The mountain is quiet, save my gasping. I lean on my good shoulder and crawl, inches
at a time, across the mountain, toward the woods. Isn’t that where
animals go to die?

Someone, it’s a ski instructor, is waving his
poles and shouting down from the lift. “Do you need me to radio for help?”

Up there, I’ve looked down at the meek humiliation
of the daring and the clumsy, those unfortunate injured skiers who are strapped
in and carted away on the Red Cross sled. Yeah, call it in. Now I’ll
know how it feels to be present for your own funeral procession. Like
driving a stock car at the track in Charlotte,
which had different ending of hearty slaps on the back and a framed photo on
fake marble, I’ll check off another bucket-list experience.

Viviane says they closed Superstar after my
crash. Too treacherous; an out-of-control intermediate from the city was nearly
killed. My fast-fading manhood is
revived. Yes, it was the ferocious mountain, not me. Mother Nature won
today’s battle, the war is mine. I am a superstar…until I find out Viviane
was conjuring a well-meaning fib, something a married woman says with noble
intentions but nary a shred of truth.

The doctor examining me says he’ll take x-rays
but it looks like a broken collar bone.
“What do you do for a living?” he asks, sounding not that interested.

“I’m with NASCAR,” I tell him. He smiles, makes eye contact for the first
time, and asks if Jimmie Johnson is going to win a third championship.

In the mirror, I basically have no right
shoulder. The disappearance of a
frequently used body part is sickening. My
arm is dangling low like an ape’s, the shoulder having apparently said, hasta la vista. The surrounding skin is already yellowish
green. I want to puke.

“This looks pretty bad. Do I need surgery?”

“I don’t think so,” he says. “I want to know this. Earnhardt moving to Hendrick: is that going
to change the competitive balance in the sport?
I mean, Dale Jr., Gordon, Johnson – that’s like a Murderers Row or the
Purple People eaters. What a lineup! They’re gonna dominate!”

I’m in starting to shiver, slipping into shock
maybe. The dull pain is starting to
spread to my chest. I’m wondering if
they’ll screw rods into my body like some of the drivers I’ve talked to, or if I’ll
be limping around like the Hunchback of NASCAR in New York.

“Do I have to stay in the hospital?” I ask.

“We’ll fix you up here, and you’ll be out in
just a few. There’s quite a separation
in the bone break. You must have hit
pretty hard. Hey, I’ve seen some hard
hits in NASCAR this year. I couldn’t believe Gordon walked away from that lick
in Pocono. How about those HANS devices
and new softer walls? They’re really
making NASCAR much safer.”

“This hurts a lot. How long will the pain last?”

“Oh, it’s like any bone break,” the doctor says. “We’ll give you some strong medication. Did you know Dale Senior broke his collarbone
at Talladega,
the car just flipping like crazy, and then he drove the next week with that
broken collarbone?”

“Yes, he
actually won the pole and the race.
Watkins Glen. Road course. Toughest course to drive, I’d imagine, with a
painful injury like that. Doctor, I’m on the first day of a five-day
vacation. Do I have to go home? We can get back to New York in about five hours.”

“It’s up to you. Frankly, you’ll at first be uncomfortable
wherever you are. You can stay in the
lodge. Hey, speaking of New York, that track NASCAR
was building is not going to happen?”

This dance goes on until the doc gives me a sling and bottle of horse pills. He tells me to see an orthopedic surgeon back
in New York. “I’d bet that doctor will want to operate. If
I were you, I’d avoid surgery. You could place one end of your collar bone on
one side of the room, and the other end on the other side, and the bones will
find each other. The collar bone is a
truly amazing thing. You should be OK in
a few months.”

He was right. I got better. (The collarbone can find anything; too bad it can’t go work for the CIA and find
bin Laden.) I was in tip-top shape but then
gruesomely rolled an ankle at Texas Motor Speedway. What used to be a jutting ankle bone at the bottom
of my skinny chicken leg soon resembled the kind of plump tomato my grandmother
would have proudly thrown in the pot for Sunday’s sauce. You hit 40, and you become spastic. Your body grows hair in odd places and
progressively falls apart. TV
commercials offer electronic devices to alert the authorities when you become
incapacitated. I can accept that. Harder to deal with is how I’d viewed those
who get hurt on business trips as losers.
I’m in that club, too. Not
exactly on the bucket list.

Each NASCAR track has a well-staffed mini-hospital in the infield. It’s meant for drivers, not clumsy, aging,
accident-prone PR people. I hobble to
the InfieldCareCenter
for an ace bandage and a tape job. I’m hosting CNBC and the New York Daily News, will be on the
ankle all day, and need to stabilize it.
The Speedway
doctor won’t tape me without taking x-rays.
Sure enough, the tip of the fibia is broken. The doc shows the film – a chunk the shape of
India
floating beneath the shin bone. The kind,
gentle and efficient folks at the TexasMotorSpeedwayInfieldCareCenter strap on a metal
boot, hand me crutches, and suggest I see an orthopedic specialist back home. “I know,” I say. “I bet they’ll want to operate.”

The busted ankle brings out the best in service companies. Avis fetches my car at the hotel, no charge. Continental bumps me to first class with curb-to-gate
wheelchair service. I make a mental note
to fake an injury before a future trip.
In light of recent events, pretending won’t be necessary.

I return to New York
to see another doctor. You can guess
what happens when he hears I got hurt at a NASCAR race. The orthopedic surgeon at St. Vincent's
Hospital in Greenwich Village secretly wishes
he were Tony Stewart’s jack man:

Clumsy PR Guy: So, it’s broken. Bummer. But there’s no
ligament damage, right?Doctor: No, none. What
amazes me is how fast those drivers go when they are so close to one another.
Extraordinary, isn’t it.Clumsy PR Guy: What about the tendons?Doctor: The tendons are fine. You don’t have to worry about that. They say it’s the roar of the cars and the
whole massive feel of it. You go to a race, and you are just blown away and
hooked.Clumsy PR Guy: I have been elevating the leg and keeping ice on
the ankle. How long should I do that?Doctor: As long as needed. I
hear NASCAR is still looking at building a track in the New York area. Jersey? Near the Meadowlands? Out on the Island? No, no, Staten Island.
Yes, that’s it. Is it true? That would be great. That sport really needs
to be here in New York.Clumsy PR Guy: Unfortunately, there’s not enough political support,
and that’s not gonna work out. Listen,
getting back to me and the ankle, I imagine there’s some sort of physical
therapy ahead?Doctor: You will absolutely need rehab. We can make a recommendation – plenty of good
places. It really seems to be a sport
that has caught on like wildfire. I have a friend at ABC, who was a big skeptic
but is now completely sold on it. They
show your races, right?Clumsy PR Guy: Yes, ABC is a partner, and NASCAR is very
popular. I sit at a computer all day. My main exercise is hitting the send button
on email. So I like to run at night.
When will I be jogging again?Doctor: Should be a few
months. Just between you and me, it gets
pretty wild at some of those tracks, huh? What’s it like?Clumsy PR Guy: It’s fun. The fans are a panic. I writing a book on
them. There’s a fan who took the NASCAR
flag to the top of Mt.Everest. Another guy walks around at the track naked
except for a Goodyear tire and Tom Sawyer straw hat. Come to think of it, he walks a lot, and I’ll
be walking a lot. I can do that with the
cast you’ll give me? No crutches?Doctor: Yes, of course. I don’t understand Staten
Island. Why didn’t they just didn’t go buy the land at Grumman
airport out on the Island? It’s totally
available.

This is a top ankle and knee guy in New York
magazine’s list of the city’s best doctors. He’s in demand and hard to reach. I was able to see him instantly. You see, his assistant is a Sprint phone-carrying
NASCAR fan. She saw “NASCAR” on my email
requesting an appointment. I was
promptly slotted in. Getting my first
preference for follow up appointments was a snap. I just had to answer a few questions about
what Dale Jr. was like, and does he really have a girlfriend?

Who says they don't love NASCAR in New
York?

Reprinted from THE WEEKEND STARTS ON WEDNESDAY, which is available online and wherever fine
books (and some really crappy ones) are sold.